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A later contributor to the same discussion tried to draw a distinction between "racial" and "racist". Suspecting it might be tendentious, I asked him to elaborate. He responded with a drawn-out art analogy.

I think one of the chief issues with discussions of race is that race isn't quite like anything else. There are parallels to other forms of discrimination (used in the broadest sense of making judgments based on superficial criteria) but there always seem to be as many important differences as there are similarities. In this case, people are not objets d'art and do not have creators who are in any way comparable to artists. For sure you can't draw a parallel between artists and races. (If anything, the parallel would be to schools or movements, but that falls apart because an object doesn't have the agency to assert its identify as an instantiation of a particular movement.)

But of course the most important thing missing from this analogy (as with most attempted racial analogies) is the power relationship: Objects are not oppressing other objects the way persons oppress other persons. If you leave out that element, then the whole example becomes pointless.

"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

He tried to start a conversation about the relationship of racism to the racial preferences people express when dating. At one point, I shared something an Arab friend told me once about being chatted up by people who thought he was Black and stopped speaking to him the moment they discovered he was Arab. He said maybe they were worried he was terrorist and termed that "racially motivated fear" as opposed to "racism."

I tried to talk more with him about this and it came out that he's one of those who equates "racism" with "white hoods". (He explicitly said as much.) I really get the feeling he's trying to excuse the unconscious racism in his milieu as not racism because racism makes you a racist and racists are bad people and he and his friends are not bad people so therefore they're not racists. I told him I'm interested in preventing discrimination, both conscious or unconscious, and he told me I sounded "hostile".

I really really wish folks in this country were as concerned with not being racist half as much as they are with not being called racist.

I believe last year or so I mentioned how certain inter-ethnic/interracial couples seem more or even way more common than others. Black men and white women and White men and east Asian/Southeast Asian women in particular seem to stand out a lot. And in USA those are indeed the most statistically common intercultural marriages, I believe.

As for dating preferences when it comes to that... well it's a complex issue, but one that really makes you think. I'm gonna be very honest: Very rarely do I find a Black or Indian woman attractive. Dunno why that's the case. Maybe really deep down my mind there's a subtle racism or xenophobic feel telling me not to find them attractive?

I think it's fine to have preferences as long as it's not an unhealthy fetish of some sort. Dating can be quite a shallow thing, and we're all discriminated in the process. Whether because of our height, our face being "ugly", our body types, our personality. Some things can be worked on upon, but others no. A short man can't just grow 10 centimetres. Just like a person cannot change their "race" or "ethnic background".

I do understand that it must be frustrating to hear something like "I don't date Black men!" or "I don't date Asian men!". Why those women might automatically refuse to do so and why they aren't attracted to such men, I have no idea. Perhaps in some cases could be a deep down fear of society judging them harshly or their parents not accepting their bf? In other cases it might just be because they'd rather date a guy they have more in common with culturally.

Then there' the whole... family policy thing or whatever. Probably a lot of couples struggle with this due to bigoted in-laws. It's probably more common when both parties are still very young, since their parents can just forbid them to date or something, but as adults that's a lot harder.

I guess a lot of times parents or other relatives have doubts or take a step back when they hear their son/grandson/daughter/wtv is marrying or dating someone from the other side of the globe, but eventually just accept it. I think it's a normal reaction at first, tbh. Especially when the people in question live in quite a homogeneous country/region/area. Or if they hear a friend or relative is marrying someone from a nationality they have never had any interaction with. If one of my colleagues or friends suddenly told us he was marrying a woman from, let's say, China or Kenya; people in my circle would be a bit surprised at first. It's normal. As for relatives, well I'm sure if I told my mother that I was gonna marry a Japanese woman she'd also be a bit surprised, and I could imagine how awkward their first meeting would be lol, but she'd have no choice but to accept it eventually, since I'm an adult and my happiness is what truly matters to her in the end.

Prowler wrote:s for dating preferences when it comes to that... well it's a complex issue, but one that really makes you think. I'm gonna be very honest: Very rarely do I find a Black or Indian woman attractive. Dunno why that's the case. Maybe really deep down my mind there's a subtle racism or xenophobic feel telling me not to find them attractive?

Or it could be something simpler. The smaller your sample size is, the harder it is to find someone you find attractive in it.

Hell, I'm Indian and I rarely find people of certain races attractive, including Indians. Some body types are just a lot more common among certain ethnicities than among others for a variety of reasons. For instance, I remember my parents telling me as I was growing up that the average Indian was much skinnier than the average American (I'm not sure whether and to what extent this particular claim is true or verifiable, though).

EDIT: There can be other factors involved, too. People of different ethnicities often (not always) come from different (sometimes very different) cultural backgrounds, so I'm likely to present myself differently depending on my best guess as to where they're coming from. For instance, I have a much harder time seeing myself get together or even talking dirty with a gay Indian man than a gay white American because white American men are far more likely to be used to that sort of thing than Indian men are (Indian men often don't even know how to curse in their own language). The ways we're socialized are so different, and that becomes relevant in situations like this.

Prowler wrote:I do understand that it must be frustrating to hear something like "I don't date Black men!" or "I don't date Asian men!". Why those women might automatically refuse to do so and why they aren't attracted to such men, I have no idea. Perhaps in some cases could be a deep down fear of society judging them harshly or their parents not accepting their bf? In other cases it might just be because they'd rather date a guy they have more in common with culturally.

We weren't actually talking about women dating men, but thanks for heteronormalising everything!

It is complex, but one thing I find particularly frustrating about these conversations is how quick some people are to deny that their sexual attractions could be in any way influenced by social factors. It's worse with gay men, since they're quick to point out that if society could really shape their preferences, they'd all fancy women, right? And most of the gay men I know participate to some extent in Bear culture, whose standards of beauty differ significantly from those of mainstream gay culture, let alone mainstream culture generally, so checkmate, SJW killjoy! As if every social subgroup didn't have its own standards and its own forms of peer pressure to adhere to those.

I had a very interesting chat recently with a coworker about the kind of men we sleep with. He's in an open relationship and he's hesitant to introduce some of his regular tricks to his partner because they're not traditionally attractive and he expects this would prompt a negative reaction--something along the lines of, "You've got me at home and yet you want to go out and have sex with someone who looks like that?"

"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Trying to use the model minority stereotype to protect ourselves from racism is just stupid. The stereotype is racist to begin with, and it hasn't been all that helpful to us anyway. Who are we kidding? We minorities are in this boat together.

What did those Vietnamese immigrants do to ally themselves with "white supremacy"?

I'm not sure that's what he means. I think he may be saying that us Asian Americans being identified as a "model minority" doesn't protect us from racism even though we (Asian Americans) often hope it does. I'm not sure how exactly Vietnamese American attitudes differ from those of other Asian Americans.